"My Religion Is Kindness"

I was perched among a rookery of noisy New Yorkers, up high in the rafters of Madison Square Garden, yet you could hear a pin drop. It was sometime in the early 1990s. Richard Gere had just introduced the Dalai Lama. I don’t remember much of what the Dalai Lama said but I do remember how I felt. I felt love. I felt loved. I felt I belonged. I felt … maybe we all felt … we belonged, to each other. It was an incredible experience.

During these transformative times, the truth of that moment has not changed. If anything, it has deepened. Yet all around us, events and attitudes and difficult interactions test our awareness of it.

An agent of evolution will cultivate compassion and kindness in these times, even when we don’t want to, not because it’s the right thing to do, but because we have been shown love and that is love’s nature - to share itself. The Dalai Lama has famously instructed:

A truly compassionate attitude toward others does not change even if they behave negatively or hurt you.

May the example set by the great beings among us remind us that it can be done - kindness and compassion are within reach, even when they seem impossible.

Happy Passover, happy holy week and Easter, if you celebrate either of those. May you feel loved.